A great apple pie

Apple pies and cakes are a great weakness of mine since I was a little girl. Back in Romania, my grandma, who was a great cook and baker, would make the perfect apple cake. Or was it a pie? It’s something in between, actually. In one of my next posts, I’ll prepare and write about that Romanian apple cake.
Anyway, I’m constantly in a search for the best apple pie. It’s something you gotta have, right? This one is my current favorite.
Before even finding its recipe, I’ve read great recommendations of it in various food forums, they all talked about Amira’s apple pie as the best you’ve ever made. So I found the recipe and obviously tried it. The results stood up to the high expectations I’ve built around this pie. The crust is crispy, and the apple filling doesn’t make it moist, due to the biscuits crumbs that you need to place onto the pie dough before adding the filling to it. The filling was great, with a beautiful cinammon aroma in it.
This was the first time I’ve made a double crusted pie. The shape of the top crust was made using a stencil.

Prepare the dough:
1. Process flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and butter in food processor.
Process using short pulses, just until a crumbly mixture is formed.
2. Add the cold water spoon by spoon, and continue processing in pulses
until the dough is formed (you may not need all the water).
3. Divide the dough into 2 halves, wrap with plastic, and refrigerate both
parts for at least an hour and max. 24 hours. The dough can also be freezed for a month or two for further use.

Prepare the filling:
1. In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except the butter and biscuit crumbs.
2. Grease a 24 cm (9 inch) pie pan. Preheat the oven to 180 celsius degrees (356 Fahrenheit).
3. Take out one part of the dough from the refrigerator, roll it out and line the pie pan with it.
4. Scatter the biscuit crumbs upon the dough. These will absorb the apples’ liquids and prevent the dough from being all too moist.
5. Arrange the apples upon the biscuit crumbs, and scatter the small butter squares evenly upon the apples.
6. Roll out the second part of the dough.
7. Use a stencil to create the grilled shape with the dough. If you don’t have a stencil, you can use a small cookie cutter to form shapes in a uniform manner, or you can place all of it as is on top of the pie, and form a single hole in its middle.
8. Place the dough on top of the apples and butter, and gently press it onto the pan, to seal it as much as possible.
9. Brush the top lightly with the melted butter.
10. Bake for about 45 mins, or until the top crust is golden brown, rotating the pan as necessary for even baking.
11. Remove the pie from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Let rest for at least 20 mins before slicing. Serve warm or at room temperature.